3/8" finger joints in ~1/2" oak. Still need to trim the excess fingers, sand, and finish. I designed it with 1/2" fingers knowing my material would be less than that after planing… Better they be too long than too short. Used a 0.002" allowance for glue.
Finished product shots, hand rubbed poly. Two magnets embedded in the front to keep it closed. Pro tip: when using magnets in this way, be sure they’re oriented properly to ATTRACT each othe BEFORE setting them in the CA glue. Pro tip #2: when trimming the fingers with a flush cut bit, slow and steady wins the race. Trying to trim to much at once results in broken fingers (the box, not mine) and then you have to make new ones to glue in the empty spots.
Nice, so you cut the whole lot with your material laying flat? That came out really nicely. I use Aspire too, I bought some software called Fingermaker which I haven’t tried yet
I agree, really pleased with how amazing it all fit together. I might change two things… 0.003 space for glue, and wider finger joints. 3/8 finger joints are just so small a space to glue up… and there are so many to put glue in. 1/2" or 3/4" fingers would have been a lot easier.
I downloaded the demo for Fingermaker a while ago. I haven’t tried it to actually cut anything, I don’t like that there’s no real CAD so I can’t inspect what it’s going to do before running the program. I need to pair it with a g-code simulator I think to be comfortable with it. The joints it makes are amazing looking though.
